Slice of SciFi #59: Interview with Bill and Toni Blair

Strong showing for Da Vinci Code speeds up greenlight for Angels and Demons

McFarlane Toys set to produce LOST action figures

Kirsten Dunst signs on to Be Kind, Rewind

Kate Beckinsale not on tap to star in Underworld prequel

“Fred Claus” is now “Joe Claus”

Movie Talk:Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is Depp’s first sequel

Slice of Trivia

TV Talk:
Spike TV goes with Frank Spotnitz’ “Amped” for 2007

Interview: Bill and Toni Blair, guests of honor at the recent LepreCon, dropped by the studio to talk with Michael and Evo about doing conventions, the fan experience, and playing many many roles in makeup. Pay no attention to the birds… these are not the birds you are looking for.

Future Talk: What’s Coming Up?

Anvil in pre-production for Gold Circle Pictures

Michael Rappaport might be a superhero in Special

Listener comments: If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know. We’ve got plenty of voicemail from fans to listen and respond to, but you’ll hear that in a fresh, separate show.

Comments

Uhh, Johnny Depp doesn’t like doesn’t do sequels huh? Someone please explain to me why he was in that horrendous sequel called “Once Upon a Time in Mexico”. Yeah, if I was in that movie, I probably would hate sequels to.

I agree with you, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” was not a very good flick (compared to the first) but as an aside, technically it wasn’t a sequel for Depp. John hates doing sequels of his own flicks. “OUTM” was actually an Antonio Banderas-Selma Hayek sequel which happens to also star Johnny Depp.

But, hey! any chance I get to see Selma – sequel or not – I’m watchin’.

I have to disagree with all of you about X-men 3. I was *extremely* disappointed with with the script (not a huge issue with the direction per se). Shield your eyes if you’ve not seen it as here are a few semi-spoilers…

…OK – they KILL OFF 3 major characters (with a “maybe he’s not DEAD dead” for one of them), de-claw (sorry!) 3 other characters (again, with a hint that at least one may have residual powers). The script did nothing to really move the narrative along – just a weak plotline that was just a re-hash of what we’ve already seen before. Some things just absolutely made no sense – like Magneto totally abandoning Mystique, why Jean/Phoenix wasn’t guarded from meddling by Wolverine, why Shadow Cat seemed to need to “duck” from Juggernaut’s charge, why Magneto (and possibly Mystique and others) appear to be scot-free with no criminal charges, etc. I could go on…

Watching this movie, I felt as let-down and betrayed as I did when I saw the two Matrix sequels. I really liked the first two movies as I felt they were the best comic treatment of any two movies to date (besting by a small margin the two Spider-man movies, which are quite good). I hope that if there are indeed more movies to come that this excursion is the “Star Trek 5″ of the series (the embarassing one no one wants to talk about).

I went to see XMen 3 after we recorded this show. I didn’t hate it. I enjoyed the action and the effects. But I didn’t love it as much as Michael and Evo did, and story flaws were the reason.

When I realized they were going to do the Dark Phoenix storyline combined with the Congressional witch hunt, I wondered how that was going to play out.

The story set up was an interesting idea, and it provided a clever way to quell some of the anti-mutant hysteria that had built up in the first two movies. This would allow future movies in the franchise or in spinoffs to focus on battles with mutants, or even extraterrestrial threats. I can live with that story choice.

I can also live with some of the story choices where the better tactical use of mutant powers would have led to shorter or non-existent battle scenes, because without the battles, the movie would have been a lot shorter. Key word: some of the choices.

I wish they’d stuck more to the major storylines as done in the comics, but how many historical revisions of characters and plots were we subjected to during the 80s and early 90s? What’s really X-Men canon anymore?

I would have liked to have seen them be more creative with the mutants, especially Phoenix. Making Rogue a mopey girlfriend was a bad choice, but I guess she was really the only one to present the opposing viewpoint of “I don’t want this power anymore”. Getting rid of her for future movies kind of makes sense, since she doesn’t have flight and the indestructibility that she does in the comics, and I really don’t see an easy way of that happening in the movie continuity.

I was never a big Cyclops fan, movie or comics, so I have no comment either way on that matter, but I know how much it does matter to some.

I honestly thought for a while that abandoning Mystique was part of a plot to feed the government information and misinformation (given that the camp was a trap), but I could be giving the writers too much credit with that one. So, Mystique was probably given immunity for turning state’s evidence (and since she had no more powers), and I’m betting they couldn’t find Magneto after the carnage.

And yes, I could nitpick much more on this, but I won’t. I guess this is what happens when not enough geek attention to story detail from 40 years of source material happens. I truly hope it doesn’t happen again.

RvB rocks. It is a new form of animation called Machinima, where “TV” series are animated using gaming engines. It is one of the funniest things ever, and I’m really glad my friend got me watching when they first started coming out. Now the Rooster Teeth crew is producing season 4.

Even if you hate games, even if you hate Halo, you need to give RvB a try.

Your mini-review was very good. You brought out a few points I hadn’t thought about, and a few more I simply didn’t comment on. I should say that I didn’t *hate* the movie, but I was hoping for a lot more in terms of substance, character development/consistency, and arc. Yes, it was a fun romp in a lot of ways (even though Ratner used the “move the camera really quick ’cause it’s action” technique I LOATHE, way too much). A few of the visual effects were quite good (like Magneto’s crushing of the vehicles in the “prison caravan” – AWESOME!).

I can buy a lot of your reasoning about the plot points, even though I think you/we are giving the screenwriters a bit too much credit. The Mystique abandonment was done with such apathy by Magneto, it makes we wonder whether the writers had even seen the first two movies (let alone read any of the comics). As regards Cyclops – yeah, I’m not a huge fan either, but if he’s going to go, let him go out in a BLAZE (sorry, couldn’t resist) of glory. As it was, he went with just a whimper (as in “hey, anybody seen Scott?”). Your comment on Rogue is spot-on; if they had given her the abilities she had in the comics, she could have taken on almost anyone.

I definitely understand your point about “what is canon” because the comic writers have re-invented the characters and whole multiverse many times over. So, yes – there isn’t a clear standard to go by. However, there is a general flow that can be derived (and I’m sure any major fans would be happy to supply the writers with). It just appears to me that the writers for this film had little regard for any of it – they were just (as Magneto put it) pawns to be moved into place for their aggrandizement.

Anyway – ’nuff said. As an action movie, judged entirely on it’s own merits, I would rate it at about a B or B- (I’m pretty stingy on ratings, so that’s not a bad rating). As far as satisfying those of us who care about the characters and the story arc, I’d rate it charitably at a C-.

I love the explaination of the interview that is in the beginning of the voicemail show. I went back and listened to the interview again after hearing that.

I read the DaVinci Code and saw the movie, and while the book is of course better, I think the movie really held up well. I think it captured the correct mood of the book. I’m undecided on Tom Hanks performance, but everyone else was great. The “prequel” book Angels and Demons was also very well written and if the movie again captures the mood it should be worth seeing.

Xmen 3- I really enjoyed it. I never read the comics (Im a DC/Vertigo girl) so I went in with no previous knowledge of anything. Im not sure if that helped me enjoy it more, but who knows maybe it did. I know a lot of people who think the Harry Potter movies are just great because they have never read the books. I think compared to the books they totally suck.